


Second Chance Wendell

by rispacooper



Series: That Bones/Criminal Minds Cracky Crossover Love Story [6]
Category: Bones (TV), Criminal Minds
Genre: Crack Pairing, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-04
Updated: 2012-03-04
Packaged: 2017-11-01 03:55:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rispacooper/pseuds/rispacooper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Wendell's turn to be brave. Sequel to Dead Serious. (Wendell can have ALL the minutes!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Chance Wendell

Wendell hadn’t taken it personally when Aaron hadn’t called him again after their date. It hadn’t felt great, no, but he had understood, or thought he’d understood, why. It was easy to rationalize the fact that Aaron wasn’t returning his calls now in the same way; Wendell had failed to be what Aaron needed him to be for this to work between them, so Aaron was hesitant to call him back. 

It didn’t matter that Wendell hadn’t known what Aaron had wanted then, like it didn’t matter that Wendell hadn’t even know what _he’d_ wanted. What mattered was that he’d failed and he had to make it up. 

But it was hard not to take it personally when he stopped calling Aaron and tried calling Aaron via Garcia, and Penelope hadn’t taken his calls either. All he’d gotten from her after three calls was a single text message. 

_We’re sorry but our princess is in another castle._

So Aaron’s team wasn’t just busy, as Wendell had wanted to think, _and_ they all either knew or suspected that something was up with them. That wasn’t a surprise, but it still took his breath away. Wendell knew that he’d been obvious, but they must all know Aaron really well to have read him too. 

They could have given him a hint, he decided resentfully. But maybe they hadn’t out of respect for their leader or maybe they’d figured that if Wendell _were_ right for Aaron, he would have realized the truth quicker than he had. That wasn’t entirely fair since getting to know someone was the purpose of dating them and that was what Wendell wanted to do, now, so they should cut him some slack. 

They wouldn’t, but that was okay. Wendell wasn’t the type of guy to cry about life not being fair. Not for long anyway. If life were fair he wouldn’t need to be in debt to go to school and Booth would see his son more and Aaron wouldn’t be a single father. That kind of lesson Wendell had already learned, like how life happens even if you study or use birth control, or how there weren’t any second chances—except for when there were—and you had better grab onto those while you could. 

So when Booth and Dr. Brennan left the lab in the early afternoon after a week of late nights and no sleep and calls back and forth to Quantico and chasing down leads, Wendell had known before he saw it on the news that they’d arrested the person responsible for the dead girls in Virginia. That meant, in addition to that bastard being locked up where he belonged, that for one day, maybe two, Aaron wouldn’t be working. It also meant that Wendell had to thank him for keeping his promise. 

He thought about that while finishing up his paperwork and he thought about it some more when he was cleaning up the equipment so he could go home. He’d thought about it for a week already, promises, making them and keeping them, promises both impossible and realistic. What they meant, how they felt, what it might feel like to make one the way Aaron did. Wendell thought he was capable of that. He thought he was more than capable of that. That’s what he decided. 

So he packed up his things, shoved them into his bag, ran his fingers through his hair, left the Jeffersonian and headed to the train station. He should take the metro, the bus, save his money, but he couldn’t wait anymore. Time to wait meant time to turn back and not do this. 

His stomach was cold and empty and tight, his mouth was dry, but his fingers skipped easily over his phone as he sent Garcia a text. 

_I need your help._

Protective of Aaron though she was, her response came while he was still waiting for the train. 

_Penelope Garcia, helping pretty boys in need since….never you mind. What’s up?_

It gave him the first warm feeling he’d had since the news that another bad guy was in jail, but he waited until he’d gotten on the train and sat down to think of his reply. It had to be right. 

_I might be storming a castle._ He bit his lip when it was sent but then smiled in relief when his phone rang about thirty seconds later. 

“For lo, Quantico has high walls,” Penelope greeted him by letting him know she’d understood his meaning right away. The pleasure in her voice took him aback a little but he recovered and sat up straighter. Right. He’d started this quest and he had to do it right. If he couldn’t convince her then he’d try Reid, though Reid never had a clue about the things he should have a clue about, and if that didn’t work, maybe he’d try Derek or Rossi, who seemed sharp. 

“The thing is, I don’t have an invitation,” Wendell relayed to her, trying to say everything else about it—Aaron didn’t want to see him, this was a bad idea, it was pathetic to use the element of surprise but he was just that pathetic. It was enough to be honest up front from and proceed from there…unless you were sneaking in an experiment of dubious scientific value, in which case it was better to confess and be forgiven. 

He heard Garcia smile’s in her voice. 

“Sugar that matters not if your motives are pure.” After that, Wendell was half-expecting her to quote Monty Python or something from her newest RPG but Penelope only hummed. It sounded like “Early One Morning”. Wendell wasn’t even sure how he knew that, but would blame Hodgins later. Penelope went on. “ _Or_ if you have an official escort inside the building.”

“I’ll call you when I’m there.” Even with how easily she’d gone along with what was probably a very stupid plan, Wendell still took a second to answer her. Once it was out he felt his cheeks stinging with the force of his smile and ducked his head. Penelope just laughed in his ear. 

“And I’ll be waiting with baited breath for your arrival, doll face. This is gonna be good.” 

Wendell put his phone away after Penelope smacked a kiss at him through the phone and hung up. He didn’t think she was kidding. The others might be oblivious or giving their boss some space, but Penelope had clearly been interested in Hotch’s happiness for a while now. No wonder she’d invited Wendell out with them on their “family nights”, Wendell couldn’t believe he was just figuring that out. Aaron had probably gotten it right away. 

Wendell ran his hands through his hair again and checked his breath and gave up pretending to himself that he was going to do any reading on this trip. By the time he reached his stop he could barely sit still and leapt to his feet. 

He should have changed into some nicer clothes, he thought in a brief panic while getting scrutinized by security, and then again when he was cleared to go on through. But the first time Aaron had seen him he’d been wearing jeans and a wifebeater, so jeans and a t-shirt and his jacket would do now. 

Penelope must have made calls. Wendell was walked through familiar halls by an agent he didn’t know. The elevator ride was awkwardly silent because Wendell couldn’t think of anything to talk about except why he was there and that didn’t seem like FBI business. 

Penelope, her hair in pigtails, was almost jumping up and down when the doors opened on the right floor. 

“Come on. I think he’s getting ready to go home.” She nearly yelled it at him and shoved the named the nameless agent away with a quick thanks before latching onto Wendell’s arm. Wendell only realized that he must have frozen in fear when Penelope grunted and dragged him behind her. Wendell jumped forward to catch up and frowned at himself, at the grey walls, at this thing he was doing that wouldn’t let him turn back now. Penelope patted his arm. 

“If I didn’t know any better I’d say Rossi was stalling him for us. He’s been up in Hotch’s office with him for the past ten minutes.”

“Penelope.” Wendell was walking but that was all. His thoughts, every word he’d considered saying for the past week, were all gone. His heart was going to explode. “Dr. Brennan is afraid of this.” He had no idea why that came out and he didn’t define “this”. Penelope needed no definition anyway. 

She patted him again and threw open a glass door to push him into the bullpen area where some members of the BAU were bent over their desks working. 

“No disrespect to your very smart boss-lady,” she sang out in a low rush, “but I’ve often found geniuses to be endearingly stupid.” She patted Reid’s head as they passed. Reid shook her off distractedly without looking up from his files. No one else looked up either, in a way that Wendell decided to be grateful for and not suspicious of. 

Garcia released him at the bottom of some stairs and gestured up. “The rest is up to you, Good Sir Bray.” 

Wendell took one step then turned back to her. He blinked, because yes, he was really doing this, and then squared his shoulders. The giddy hope on her face was blinding. She loved Hotch that much. They all did. This wasn’t something she did lightly, no matter how many jokes she made. 

He leaned in and kissed her cheek, because if this went bad he probably wouldn’t see her much anymore and because Wendell had always liked kissing pretty, smiling girls and if this went well he wouldn’t be doing that much anymore either. 

He turned back around at her startled stare, just as her delighted cackle of laughter broke out and before he could say something silly back to her, like “Thank you, my lady.” Then he went up the stairs. 

He spotted the name on the door, _Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner_ , but that was meaningless when he could see through the glass walls of the office and the partially closed blinds. He saw Agent Rossi turned toward Aaron, who was turned in another direction. Rossi was smiling and reaching for the door but he stopped when Wendell did, then he lifted his eyebrows and opened the door. 

“Try to take some time this weekend,” he called out to Aaron with his attention on Wendell. He looked him over, his eyebrows still up, but he lowered them when Wendell exhaled and didn’t move. 

Wendell wasn’t going to fight Rossi, Rossi was older, and FBI, and Aaron’s friend, and he looked like he would fight dirty, but Wendell _could_ stand his ground. 

“You could give my mother lessons,” Aaron said dryly to Rossi, his voice calm and distant but enough to make Wendell break eye contact with Rossi to look for him, a search that ended abruptly when Rossi reached behind the door and closed the blinds. 

“You might actually listen to her,” Rossi answered, apparently as a goodbye. He left the door open and walked by Wendell without making way for him, somehow only barely brushing shoulders with him. 

“Don’t give him a chance to think,” Rossi murmured, sotto voice, and swept past, leaving Wendell to face the open door. 

“If either of us were good at listening we might not have four failed marriages between us.” Aaron probably thought Rossi was still nearby. It was a dirty trick; Wendell kind of liked Rossi for it. 

Aaron must have just gotten up from behind his desk; he was standing and straightening his tie. He stopped when he saw Wendell, his gaze sweeping over him and then the door and the closed blinds, searching for Rossi, or not. He shook his head once, gently, after that pause, and then looked back at Wendell. 

“Wendell.” Carefully neutral or not, Aaron looked tired, done in, as Wendell’s mom would have said. Exhausted from work and maybe work-related nightmares, but also maybe stressed because he’d missed Wendell or he needed to get laid or even just a hug from someone who wasn’t seven. 

Wendell would hug him. Garcia would hug him if it came to it. And unless Wendell was very wrong, the talk they had just had in here had been Agent Rossi’s version of a hug. Aaron had people to love him; he should let them. 

He grabbed the strap of his bag and moved from the doorway. There were people down there probably watching this, and he wanted behind the closed blinds to say this. 

“This is going to sound weird after that,” Rossi had three failed marriages, really? “But, uh,” Wendell wet his mouth, “Could I talk to you for a minute? Two minutes? Five?” 

At least his desperate bargaining made Aaron’s lips curve up, though his eyebrows were drawn together. 

“I’m on my way out.” Aaron stood where he was, as though he hadn’t just said that. That was something. Wendell glanced around, the open door and his potential audience in mind, then stepped closer to the desk. 

“I…okay. I wanted to tell you, you know, thank you, for catching that guy like you…promised. Catching him like you promised.” He got it out and took a deep, shaky breath. 

Aaron hadn’t said the words “I promise” and he would have done his best to catch the killer with or without Wendell’s presence, but Wendell wanted him to know that he knew some part of Aaron _had_ done it because he’d asked him to. 

“It’s my job.” Aaron did look away. It should have been comical, someone that unyielding and vigilant, but Wendell liked it. He’d missed it. As intense as it was, Aaron always softened it for others, tamped it down with innocents and civilians. But he could never hide it completely, and Wendell wasn’t sure he should. “He deserved to be caught and hopefully he will be punished. There’s no need to thank me.”

“Yeah,” Wendell had anticipated that. It still wasn’t easy to keep going. Flirting and asking people out had never required this much follow-through. But he hunched his shoulders and frowned and dug in. “Yes, but I wanted to.”

That wasn’t good enough. That wasn’t even a B, and Wendell needed all A’s and a scholarship here. 

Fuck it. Wendell scowled, stepped back, shut the door, then came over to the desk and raised his chin. He wasn’t supposed to be giving Aaron time to think. That’s why he’d come here; the element of surprise. 

“I also wanted to tell you I like you. I liked you before but I didn’t understand what you were asking, and I didn’t realize how much I liked you. But I like you. A lot.” Nothing could be overlooked. Everything had to be turned and cleaned and exposed to the light. That’s how things were discovered. 

Of course, they weren’t proven until they could be duplicated, and Wendell didn’t think he could get that all out again in the face of Aaron’s silence. 

Something passed through Aaron’s face, infinitesimally lightening his expression without making it any less stern. Wendell put his bag on the desk and tried to look like he did when he had to convince Dr. Saroyan that an experiment was _absolutely necessary_ even when it wasn’t. Cute, friendly, and harmless. 

“I’ve been thinking about promises lately. The thing about them is that they make you feel better, but most are impossible to keep. Most people don’t even try. I want to try though. I want to date you…and other things. Sleep with you too, because we will be good. But this.” He nodded. “This is what I want. I want to see you.” 

He stopped for air and to think about what he’d said and if it had made sense. He hoped so, he really wasn’t up for this again, but the continuing silence from Aaron made him shift and reach up to scratch the back of his head. 

“That’s um, probably not romantic to you but I think it is. It’s rational. I don’t want to lie to you and I’ve never done anything like this, but like you said, I’m smart and driven.” He tried a smile that might have worked on Dr. Saroyan. Aaron only let his shoulders drop the smallest fraction. 

“Wendell…” 

“Hear me out!” Wendell put up a hand to hold him off and came around the desk. Aaron watched him with eyes that seemed especially dark. “We fight the odds because that’s what we do, right? We go out, and we don’t do anything that doesn’t feel right and we just…take it from there.” He stopped right in front of Aaron who shifted in toward him, matching his position. Wasn’t that supposed to be a sign of something important? Wendell would learn to profile if it killed him. 

Aaron watched him, barely breathing as he listened, so Wendell didn’t waste his chance. “I know you have more to lose so that’s why I’m here. I can risk this.”

“It isn’t just that.” Aaron kept his voice low. Wendell couldn’t say how he knew Aaron was embarrassed, but he did. The icy knot in his stomach suddenly wasn’t so tight. He looked down at Aaron’s body in his dark suit and white shirt, studying his narrow hips and flat stomach, his straight back, imagining them without the suit and the shirt and the simple tie. Then he looked up again. 

“I’ve been thinking about that too.” He didn’t gesture but the softening in Aaron’s expression was followed by a rush of color across his skin. 

It was weird the things that made Wendell smile these days. 

“And that…” His voice rose and nearly broke, so he cleared his throat. It made his words husky. “That could work out well for me.” He was pushing his luck by teasing Aaron, but Aaron’s gaze stayed steady on him and after a second his lips parted. 

“How is that exactly?” Aaron inquired like he suspected the answer, not quite grinning, but not quite dry. 

“I get to train you to what I like.” Wendell leered and meant it at the same time. He exhaled when Aaron raised an eyebrow. Aaron wasn’t just listening, he was thinking too. But Wendell didn’t think that was a bad thing anymore when Aaron nodded. 

“What if I discover things that I like?” If Aaron was negotiating, then he shouldn’t drop his gaze to Wendell’s mouth. Wendell wet it for him and heard his voice get rough. 

“Then you can train me.” His shrug wasn’t casual at all. 

Aaron might have still—might have definitely—had some doubts, but he swallowed after Wendell’s answer and breathed out, fast, as he considered it. 

“That does seem fair,” he admitted at last, reluctant amusement and arousal making his eyes dark and crinkled at the corners. Wendell resisted the urge to crow in victory—he was maturing that very moment—but he did inch his chin up. 

“I wouldn’t want to hurt you.” He said as honest as Aaron might have. Aaron stared back at him. 

“We never do. There are always the best intentions…” he stopped himself abruptly, right there. He made himself stop, Wendell could see it. He looked down and contemplated the chemical composition of the red dye in Aaron’s probably silk tie until he trusted himself to look up again. 

“Are you free tonight? We could see a movie?” He didn’t even know what kind of movies Aaron liked, but whatever, they could watch anything. 

Aaron opened his mouth. “I have to go pick up Jack.” Wendell wondered if Aaron was aware of how gently he said it. It wasn’t a rejection, Wendell got that now. 

“That’s okay.” It wasn’t that he was jealous of a child he’d never met, it was that he was _so close_ and that was all he was going to get for now. So close, and if he walked down those stairs now Garcia might smack him. But taking back an invitation he’d extended to Aaron was almost a habit now. “We don’t have to. Maybe that’s too juvenile, or--”

“I would like that. Just not tonight,” Aaron spoke in calm, forceful bursts. Wendell _had_ to smile. 

“Aaron I can’t tell you how great it is that you’re as terrible at this as I am.” It was one of the reasons Aaron doubted this would work, but Wendell thought it was awesome.

“That shouldn’t be reassuring.” 

“But it is.” Wendell bounced on his heels. “Last time I thought…the last, _one_ , time I had this, she knew everything and I didn’t. I like this better.” 

He enjoyed watching three different frowns came and go on Aaron’s face before he clearly tried and failed to be reasonable. 

“I didn’t know you’d been hurt before.” Aaron stopped himself again and then looked exasperated when Wendell thought that was funny. Wendell bounced again, he couldn’t help it. He thought the lines at Aaron’s eyes were smile lines and it made him want to throw his hands up in the air and shout. 

“King of the lab?” Aaron interpreted his expression softly. Wendell gave an empathetic nod. 

“Yes.” He put his hands on Aaron’s chest and leaned in. “Definitely yes.” The kiss was short but hot, dragging lips and that hesitant pause from Aaron before he opened up and kissed back. He kissed back. Wendell didn’t care about anything else right now except that…and the brief touch of Aaron’s tongue to his before Aaron pulled away again. 

“At work,” was all he said, which wasn’t any decent kind of a “no”. More like a “later”, which was how Wendell took it. Hell yes. He licked his mouth and smiled and let Aaron look at him like he was dinner and dessert. 

Wendell cleared his throat. “If you’re wondering,” he started gently, “that isn’t just ‘kissing a guy for the first time’ good.” 

It was a bad idea to talk about kissing while trying not to kiss someone again, so Wendell backed up, bumping into the desk and blindly picking up his bag but being respectful of Aaron’s limits. For right now, he was being totally respectful. 

But later… Wendell was very excited about the later.

“It isn’t?” Aaron’s gaze was starving, just for that moment before Wendell opened the door. 

The people downstairs turned away too fast for people who hadn’t been watching this office. Wendell did not care. 

“Hell no.” He swore and didn’t care about that either. His eyes were probably eating Aaron up too and he didn’t care about anything right now but that slow, careful smile lifting up Aaron’s mouth. “It’s good because it’s us. It’s ‘Wendell kissing Aaron’ good and I can prove it to you.” 

Just to be sure. He had to be sure. He just had to be quiet so those not-watching people wouldn’t hear. 

Aaron was still reserved, cautious, but the tinge of amusement in his voice was clearer than the light that made his eyes twinkle. 

“Monday night. I’m not working.” 

Wendell took a second to beam at him, then two, then turned and looked out at his audience. The triumphant act at the end of a successful and risky experiment was so familiar that it was almost natural, so he raised his arms up over his head and grinned. He didn’t shout, but that didn’t matter because Penelope clapped her hands together. She looked like she wanted to plant a kiss on him but instead she called out to him as he came down the stairs, loud enough that even profilers pretending to work hard had to look up. 

“Hurrah for our hero!”


End file.
